Houston-area officials seek shortcut to Aggieland

HOUSTON — Harris County Commissioner Jack Cagle arrived late to a meeting in Magnolia last week about the need to improve Texas 249. He was stuck in traffic on that very highway.

“This is Exhibit A for why we need to get this 249 project done,” Cagle said when he arrived about 20 minutes after the meeting started. “You plan, you add that extra hour to your journey and you're still running late.”

But easing the workday commute for tens of thousands of residents around Tomball, Pinehurst and Magnolia is just one goal of the plans local officials have for 249. Montgomery County officials are hoping to extend Harris County's planned Tomball Tollway, expected to start construction late next year. And the Texas Department of Transportation, prompted by local officials clamoring for a Houston-to-College Station highway, is reviving study of taking the freeway all the way to Navasota, about 20 miles south of the Texas A&M campus.

The assorted projects, stacked behind each other annually from now until about 2016, rely on local cooperation.

“This is not a zero-sum game,” Cagle said. “This is one where when the tide comes in, all the ships float.”

Along 249, residents and officials have varying reasons to want a bigger highway. In Magnolia, which has exploded with residential growth over the past decade, there is huge demand to help commuters, said Deborah Rose Miller, executive director of the Magnolia Economic Development Corporation. Nearly 43 percent of the city's residents work outside Montgomery County.

A widened freeway also helps draw stores, restaurants and office buildings to the area, bringing some of the development Tomball has experienced to Montgomery County, Miller said.

All that's needed is a wider highway to accommodate the traffic, officials said. Helpfully, a 400-foot swath of right of way, acquired by the state in anticipation of future development, is available along 249.

“There is a segment out there screaming for concrete,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Craig Doyal.

Harris County benefits from the easier access Montgomery County residents will have to Houston-area businesses and offices, Cagle said.

Work extending the Tomball Tollway from Spring-Cypress Road to Waller-Tomball Road is scheduled to begin next fall. From there, plans call for taking the toll lanes into Montgomery County, marking the county's first foray into pay-lanes.

Harris County officials are considering a proposal to partner with Montgomery County, lending up to $20 million to help design and build the northern expansion. Montgomery County would repay the money via its toll revenues.

“It is really more just a guarantee,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said.

Harris County officials entered into a similar agreement to help Fort Bend County build its tollway.

As the region grows, development needs don't stop at the county line, or at the boundaries of TxDOT districts. That's the purpose of coordination among officials from multiple areas to sync highways, such as Texas' lengthy Farm to Market roads.

“That has worked over the years,” Emmett said. “You don't have many examples of where someone built a road to nowhere.”

Along 249, TxDOT officials are building on what Harris County and Montgomery County are doing. Environmental study will begin next year along two planned segments of an extension of 249, said Russell Zapalac, TxDOT's chief planning and project officer.

State officials are working with local leaders in the area, who for years have lobbied for an “Aggie Highway” from the Houston suburbs to College Station.

“I don't think we're talking about building something grand at this point,” Zapalac said. “But we certainly consider it one of our strategic projects.”